In many Pacific island countries, meeting non-food basic needs is a growing challenge and further complicated by substantial economic and environmental risks.
... انظر المزيد + Hardship and vulnerability are increasingly prominent concerns in Pacific island countries, but the knowledge base to guide policymaking is limited. Family and community networks are central to life in most Pacific island countries, providing critical support to members in need and acting as safety nets when individuals or households experience losses from shocks. The primary objective of this report is to present solid empirical evidence of hardship, vulnerability to shocks, and risk management in the Pacific region. The report is primarily a stocktaking exercise that brings together existing evidence and new analysis of available data using a consistent framework. The report takes a micro perspective that of the individual and household but accounts for the important role of communities, the state, and international partners. This report focuses on risks, but accounts for the role of opportunities when possible. While remaining supportive of viable economic growth sectors, given the limited means of most Pacific governments, expenditure should be carefully focused on investments with high expected economic returns and relatively low risks. Development partners can play a role in financing these investments and in sharing experiences on what works from other parts of the world.
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Malaysia has in many ways become a success story in shared prosperity. Shared prosperity means that all households experience income growth, but growth is higher for those households at the bottom of the distribution, a pattern that leads to lower inequality.
... انظر المزيد + In the past 40 years, Malaysia drew on its natural resources to nearly eradicate absolute poverty, from 49 percent in 1970 to 1 percent in 2014. The number of Malaysians vulnerable to falling into absolute poverty has also declined in this period. To accelerate Malaysias transformation into a middle-class society, Malaysia may consider prioritizing reforms that: (i) close the educational achievement gaps at the post-secondary levels by compensating for family background, including pursuing universal pre-primary enrolment and otherpolicies to boost the quality of the poorest performing schools; (ii) provide more demand-driven post-secondary skills training for those already in the labor markets; (iii) create an integrated social safety net including both social insurance mechanisms to protect households against shocks and old age (for example by introducing unemployment insurance and redirecting subsidy savings to matching contributions to retirement accounts), and higher levels of social transfers (by consolidating, improving targeting, and increasing benefits of existing programs); and (iv) this safety net may be financed through more progressive tax policy (for example by reviewing the top marginal personal income tax rate and expanding the number of taxpayers).
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The contribution of work to growth and household well-being is a growing concern in East Asia Pacific. The labor share of gross domestic product (GDP) in several countries in the region has been declining.
... انظر المزيد + Specific problems include high youth inactivity and unemployment, rising inequality, and binding skills shortages. A key underlying issue is widespread economic informality, which increases household vulnerability to shocks, limits the tax base, and constrains innovation and the productivity of firms and the economy as a whole. Informality is both a consequence of relatively stringent labor regulations and a reason for their widespread evasion. Key components of the appropriate policy response include macroeconomic stability and a regulatory framework that encourages, in particular, the growth of small and medium enterprises where most people in East Asia Pacific work. It is also critical to formalize more work, in order to increase the coverage of essential work-risk and social protection and to sustain growth. To this end, policies should encourage mobility of labor and human capital and not favor some forms of employment (for instance, full-time wage employment in manufacturing) over others. East Asia Pacific is one of the most diverse regions in the world. The challenges to sustaining well-being from work are just as diverse. Countries that are still mainly agrarian should focus on raising agricultural productivity. Rapidly urbanizing countries should address the critical need for good urban planning. The Pacific island countries should provide young people with the human capital they need to succeed abroad as migrant workers.
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Talent, skills, and the ability to work are peoples most important assets. The majority of people realize the value of these assets in the labor market, whether they sell their time to others or pursue their own enterprise.
... انظر المزيد + Work is often the channel through which the benefits of economic growth spread and living standards improve. This has been especially evident since 1990, as the share of the worlds population living in poverty has declined by half. The prospects of working people in East Asia Pacific are better than those of many living elsewhere. The flow of goods and services within the region, integration with the global economy, price stability, rule of law, and relatively unfettered markets all foster opportunities for advancement through work that people in other regions regard with envy. In East Asia Pacific, work has brought more people out of poverty and closer to middleclass prosperity faster during the past three decades than in any other place and at any other time. The first (chapters 1, 2, and 3) describes the context: what is unique about East Asia Pacific, how diverse are the profiles of households and firms within the region, and how is the contribution of work to well-being changing. The second part (chapters 4, 5, and 6) reviews policy and takes stock of the prevailing models in East Asia Pacific and how they affect the prospects of and outcomes for working people. The third part (chapters 7, 8, and 9) looks at the policies that governments in East Asia Pacific economies may wish to consider sustaining the transformative impact of work, even as growth in the region begins to moderate.
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The contribution of work to growth and household well-being is a growing concern in East Asia Pacific. The labor share of gross domestic product (GDP) in several countries in the region has been declining.
... انظر المزيد + Specific problems include high youth inactivity and unemployment, rising inequality, and binding skills shortages. A key underlying issue is widespread economic informality, which increases household vulnerability to shocks, limits the tax base, and constrains innovation and the productivity of firms and the economy as a whole. Informality is both a consequence of relatively stringent labor regulations and a reason for their widespread evasion. Key components of the appropriate policy response include macroeconomic stability and a regulatory framework that encourages, in particular, the growth of small and medium enterprises where most people in East Asia Pacific work. It is also critical to formalize more work, in order to increase the coverage of essential work-risk and social protection and to sustain growth. To this end, policies should encourage mobility of labor and human capital and not favor some forms of employment (for instance, full-time wage employment in manufacturing) over others. East Asia Pacific is one of the most diverse regions in the world. The challenges to sustaining well-being from work are just as diverse. Countries that are still mainly agrarian should focus on raising agricultural productivity. Rapidly urbanizing countries should address the critical need for good urban planning. The Pacific island countries should provide young people with the human capital they need to succeed abroad as migrant workers.
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In the Pacific island countries, which are small and far from world markets, labor mobility represents the most significant and substantial opportunity for overcoming geographic constraints on employment.
... انظر المزيد + This report presents a brief overview of employment challenges in small Pacific island countries and recommendations for addressing them. The report contributes to an ongoing World Bank analytical program examining the linkages between employment and well-being around the world, begun with the World Development Report 2013: jobs. Discussion in this report relates to Pacific island states, with populations of significantly less than one million, including Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Republic of Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. Economic growth and diversification has been very limited in these countries because of the barriers imposed by smallness and distance, and these barriers will not be quickly overcome. This report provides five priorities that are likely to be broadly applicable to the unique group of countries. First, stakeholders expectations about the trajectory of development will need to be realistic. Second, the volume of international labor mobility should be increased through the erosion of regulatory barriers and investment in transferable human capital. Third, governments can work to harness the positive potential of urbanization through investment in improved rural services, connective infrastructure, and improved urban administration. Fourth, productive public spending can be used as a mechanism for creating new employment opportunities. Finally, policies can ensure that natural resource industries provide a sustainable source of employment creation.
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Global growth momentum accelerated during the second and third quarters of 2013, while many downside risks lingered in the background. Strengthening of global growth momentum will help developing East Asia maintain a growth rate in excess of 7 percent, retaining its status as the global growth leader.
... انظر المزيد + Domestic demand, which has been the main driver of growth in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region in the post-global financial crisis period, is slowing. The decision by the United States (U.S.) Federal Reserve to delay tapering of quantitative easing has restored capital flows to emerging markets, giving the authorities a second opportunity to take measures to lower risks from future volatility. As the global growth cycle undergoes change, adjustments to fiscal and monetary policy are warranted in many EAP countries. With growth running at or above potential for most countries in the region, progress at upgrading growth and reducing poverty depends crucially on structural reforms. While the balance of risks to base case regional forecast lies on the downside, several upside risks have recently emerged. The three immediate headline risks include a less orderly tapering of the U.S.s unconventional monetary policies, prolonged fiscal deadlock in the U.S., and a sharper than expected slowdown of the Chinese economy. In this context, the report is divided into following three parts: part one is recent developments and outlook; part two is selected emerging issues; and part three is the medium-term development agenda. This report includes a special section focusing on two emerging regional issues: the sustainability of Chinas investment- and credit-intensive growth model, and the regional implications of any future tapering of quantitative easing in the United States.
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The New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD) agency jointly with the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) multi-donor trust fund, organized a two-day workshop on agriculture public expenditure reviews undertaken recently in sub-Saharan countries.
... انظر المزيد + The purpose of the workshop was to enable participants to learn from each other through sharing their country experiences in undertaking agricultural sector public expenditure analyses over the past several years. This was intended to focus both on experiences in carrying out public expenditure analysis and also on the substantive analytical results and emerging recommendations. The workshop provided a session in which each country delegation was provided the time to discuss workshop implications for specific country contexts, and to begin preparation of any summary report one needed to prepare on return home. The work-shop concluded with summary remarks from the FAO and World Bank before being closed by the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA). In this context, this paper presents following sessions of workshop: session one as welcome remarks; session two presents methods and process; session three gives preliminary synthesis results; session four is discussion summary; session five presents country presentation: Togo, by Mr. Treku, Ghana, by Mr. Ohemeng-Boateng, and Burkina Faso, by Mr. Taondyande; session six gives discussion of country presentations; session seven presents specialized analysis: case of Tanzania voucher program (NAIVS), by Mr. Mink and discussion of specialized analysis; session eight presents panel: process; session nine gives panel: analytical results; session ten presents panel: achieving impact; and session fourteen and fifteen gives synthesis and closing remarks.
رؤية أقل ـ

The New Partnership for Africas Development (NEPAD) agency jointly with the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) multi-donor trust fund, organized a two-day workshop on agriculture public expenditure reviews undertaken recently in sub-Saharan countries.
... انظر المزيد + The purpose of the workshop was to enable participants to learn from each other through sharing their country experiences in undertaking agricultural sector public expenditure analyses over the past several years. This was intended to focus both on experiences in carrying out public expenditure analysis and also on the substantive analytical results and emerging recommendations. The workshop provided a session in which each country delegation was provided the time to discuss workshop implications for specific country contexts, and to begin preparation of any summary report one needed to prepare on return home. The work-shop concluded with summary remarks from the FAO and World Bank before being closed by the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA). In this context, this paper presents following sessions of workshop: session one as welcome remarks; session two presents methods and process; session three gives preliminary synthesis results; session four is discussion summary; session five presents country presentation: Togo, by Mr. Treku, Ghana, by Mr. Ohemeng-Boateng, and Burkina Faso, by Mr. Taondyande; session six gives discussion of country presentations; session seven presents specialized analysis: case of Tanzania voucher program (NAIVS), by Mr. Mink and discussion of specialized analysis; session eight presents panel: process; session nine gives panel: analytical results; session ten presents panel: achieving impact; and session fourteen and fifteen gives synthesis and closing remarks.
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This book is about Magda and Jacek and millions of others like them, who earn a living working full- or part-time in Europes untaxed markets for goods, services, and labor.
... انظر المزيد + Magda was certified as a hairdresser years ago, and shes very proud of the salon apprenticeship she did shortly after. She learned a lot and made good friends but was never fully comfortable working for somebody else. Jaceks clients pay him in cash, and he pays his men in cash as well. He sometimes needs to show a license to get the trade price on parts and materials. But he can keep it up-to-date by declaring only part of what he actually earns to the tax office. This book ventures a general conclusion about what policy makers can do to bring more economic activity in from the shadow: Although it may be necessary to improve the structural incentives created by taxation, social protection policies, and labor market regulation, doing so is not sufficient for substantive improvement to be achieved. To back up this general conclusion, the book presents a large body of evidence indicating that much more than the fairly mechanical incentive structures of taxation, social policy, and labor market regulation is at work in shaping the circumstances that lead people into the shadowy unregulated and untaxed markets for goods, services, and labor.
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There is general agreement that the existence of participatory institutions is a necessary condition for accountability, especially where top-down institutions are malfunctioning or missing.
... انظر المزيد + In education, the evidence on the effectiveness of participatory accountability is mixed. This paper argues that participation is a social dilemma and therefore depends, at least partly, on individuals propensity to cooperate with others for the common good. This being the case, the mixed evidence could be owing to society-level heterogeneities in individuals willingness and ability to overcome collective action problems. The authors investigate whether individuals propensity to cooperate plays a role in parents decisions to participate in both a school accountability system -- a short route to accountability -- and parliamentary elections -- a long route to accountability -- by combining survey data on 1,800 individuals participation decisions with measures of their willingness to contribute to a public good in the context of a very simple, clearly defined laboratory experiment. They conduct a study in a new democracy, Albania, involving parents of children enrolled in primary schools. The findings confirm that, both across individuals within communities and across communities, the decision to hold teachers and school directors accountable directly through participation at the school level, and indirectly through political participation correlates with cooperativeness in a simple public goods game.
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The extent to which teachers and school directors are held to account may play a central role in determining education outcomes, particularly in developing and transition countries where institutional deficiencies can distort incentives.
... انظر المزيد + This paper investigates the relationship between an expanded set of school inputs, including proxies for the functionality of top-down and bottom-up accountability systems, and education outputs in Albanian primary schools. The authors use data generated by an original survey of 180 nationally representative schools. The analysis shows a strong negative correlation between measures of top-down accountability and students rates of grade repetition and failure in final examinations, and a strong positive correlation between measures of top-down accountability and students excellence in math. Bottom-up accountability measures are correlated to various education outputs, although they tend lose statistical significance once parent characteristics, school resources and top-down accountability indicators are considered. An in-depth analysis of participatory accountability within the schools focuses on parents willingness to hold teachers to account. Here, the survey data are combined with data from lab-type experiments conducted with parents and teachers in the schools. In general, the survey data highlight problems of limited parental involvement and lack of information about participatory accountability structures. The experiments indicate that the lack of parental participation in the school accountability system is owing to information constraints and weak institutions that allow parent class representatives to be appointed by teachers rather than elected by parents.
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Economic growth will be unbalanced, but development can still be inclusive-that is the message of this years World development report, the thirty-first in the series.
... انظر المزيد + As economies grow from low to high income, production becomes more concentrated spatially. Some places, cities, coastal areas, and connected countries-are favored by producers. As countries develop, the most successful ones also institute policies that make living standards of people more uniform across space. The principle for a successful spatial transformation, getting the immediate benefits of concentration of production, and the long term benefits of a convergence in living standards, is economic integration. The report first describes the spatial transformations needed for development. It analyzes these changes using the insights from economic history and recent research. Then it revisits the policy debates on urbanization, regional development, and international integration.
رؤية أقل ـ

Economic growth will be unbalanced, but development can still be inclusive-that is the message of this years World development report, the thirty-first in the series.
... انظر المزيد + As economies grow from low to high income, production becomes more concentrated spatially. Some places, cities, coastal areas, and connected countries-are favored by producers. As countries develop, the most successful ones also institute policies that make living standards of people more uniform across space. The principle for a successful spatial transformation, getting the immediate benefits of concentration of production, and the long term benefits of a convergence in living standards, is economic integration. The report first describes the spatial transformations needed for development. It analyzes these changes using the insights from economic history and recent research. Then it revisits the policy debates on urbanization, regional development, and international integration.
رؤية أقل ـ

Economic growth will be unbalanced, but development can still be inclusive-that is the message of this years World development report, the thirty-first in the series.
... انظر المزيد + As economies grow from low to high income, production becomes more concentrated spatially. Some places, cities, coastal areas, and connected countries-are favored by producers. As countries develop, the most successful ones also institute policies that make living standards of people more uniform across space. The principle for a successful spatial transformation, getting the immediate benefits of concentration of production, and the long term benefits of a convergence in living standards, is economic integration. The report first describes the spatial transformations needed for development. It analyzes these changes using the insights from economic history and recent research. Then it revisits the policy debates on urbanization, regional development, and international integration.
رؤية أقل ـ

Economic growth will be unbalanced, but development can still be inclusive-that is the message of this years World development report, the thirty-first in the series.
... انظر المزيد + As economies grow from low to high income, production becomes more concentrated spatially. Some places, cities, coastal areas, and connected countries-are favored by producers. As countries develop, the most successful ones also institute policies that make living standards of people more uniform across space. The principle for a successful spatial transformation, getting the immediate benefits of concentration of production, and the long term benefits of a convergence in living standards, is economic integration. The report first describes the spatial transformations needed for development. It analyzes these changes using the insights from economic history and recent research. Then it revisits the policy debates on urbanization, regional development, and international integration.
رؤية أقل ـ

Economic growth will be unbalanced, but development can still be inclusive-that is the message of this years World development report, the thirty-first in the series.
... انظر المزيد + As economies grow from low to high income, production becomes more concentrated spatially. Some places, cities, coastal areas, and connected countries-are favored by producers. As countries develop, the most successful ones also institute policies that make living standards of people more uniform across space. The principle for a successful spatial transformation, getting the immediate benefits of concentration of production, and the long term benefits of a convergence in living standards, is economic integration. The report first describes the spatial transformations needed for development. It analyzes these changes using the insights from economic history and recent research. Then it revisits the policy debates on urbanization, regional development, and international integration.
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The degree to which a labor market is segmented and jobs in the formal sector of the economy are rationed is critical to the analysis of coverage of social insurance and pensions.
... انظر المزيد + Using unique panel data spanning the 1998-99 contraction in Chile, the author finds little evidence that self-employment is the residual sector of a dualistic labor market, as is often depicted in the literature. Data on transitions between sectors show that self-employment is not a free-entry sector, and that entrepreneurs can be pushed out of self-employment just as others are pushed out of formal employment during economic downturns. But employment without a contract does exhibit many of the features of the free-entry, employment safety net depicted in the dualistic literature. An annex to this paper presents supportive evidence from static analysis of selection-corrected wage differentials and a comment on the drawbacks of this approach.
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This book breaks new ground in the ongoing debate about health finance and financial protection from the costs of health care. The evidence and discussion support the need to consider financial protection, in addition to health status, as a policy objective when setting priorities for health systems.
... انظر المزيد + This book reviews the Latin American experience with health reform in the last 20 years and the fundamentals of health system financing, using new evidence to show the magnitude and mechanisms that determine the impoverishing effects of health events (diseases, accidents, and those of the life cycle). It provides options for policy makers on how to protect, and help household to protect themselves, against this impoverishment. The authors use empirical evidence from six case studies commissioned for this report, on Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico. This book provides policy makers with a solid conceptual basis for decisions on the contents of mandatory health insurance benefit packages, choices of financing mechanisms, and the roles of public policy in this field. It provides an in-depth analysis of, and organizational alternatives for, risk pooling and health insurance for financial protection. It analyzes the urgent need to extend risk pooling to the informal sector, the challenges for current social insurance arrangements, and options for policy makers to effectively extend risk pooling to the informal sector.
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Nations around the world (both large and small, rich and poor) are engaged in debate over how to reform their social security systems and care for the aged.
... انظر المزيد + For many countries this debate requires speculation on hypothetical scenarios, but in Latin America a rich body of experience on social security reform has been accumulating for more than a decade (for Chile, more than two decades). This report, entitled, Keeping the Promise of Social Security in Latin America, takes stock of those reforms, evaluates their successes and failures, and considers the lessons that can be drawn for the future of pension policy in the region. The authors draw on a series of background papers and surveys commissioned specifically for this inquiry, as well as existing research conducted by themselves and other pension experts. In the debate on pension reform there is no orthodoxy, as reflected in major differences of opinion among leading experts. Despite more than a decade of experience with pension reform in Latin America, although undoubtedly a major step forward, reforms are still works in progress. This report furthers enrich the policy dialogue that is of crucial importance to the future of the region.
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